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Richard A. Shweder, a professor of human development at the University of Chicago, is the editor of several books on anthropology and human development, among them Ethnography and Human Development: Context and Social Inquiry and Welcome to Middle Age! (And Other Cultural Fictions). In addition to these editorships, Shweder has also collected his own writings as Thinking through Cultures: Expeditions in Cultural Psychology and Why Do Men Barbecue?: Recipes for Cultural Psychology, the latter published in 2003. Reviewing Thinking through Cultures for the Religious Studies Review, Robert A. Segal praised Shweder's proposal that future study be channeled into the relativistic field of "cultural psychology," and noted that, "written with verve and panache, Shweder's book offers a stream of striking, sometimes brilliant vignettes" to support his argument.

In Welcome to Middle Age!, published in 1998, Shweder collects essays that focus on the years—between ages thirty and seventy—when humans begin to encounter physical decline, their authors focusing on the reaction to this period of life in cultures around the world. Unlike the United States, other cultures did not distinguish this time in life, but America's ageist beliefs, supported by its media and advertising campaigns, have spread the concept of "middle age" worldwide. As people live longer, and technology and medical advances offer hope of agelessness, even for Americans the concept is undergoing a transition, according to Shweder. Diana Olsberg, writing in the Australian Journal of Anthropology, noted that Welcome to Middle Age! "is a book we all should read regardless of our particular disciplinary field or research interest" because the volumes "gives us new insights into the ways in which human subjects are aged by culture" rather than biology. While R. Simpson questioned in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute why, "Having laid out some fascinating material, … the authors did not end the collection with a chapter, perhaps an entirely theoretical one, which would bring together the diverse themes presented and give some clue as to where the emergent field of life-course studies might go next," American Journal of Sociology contributor John Modell applauded the collection, stating that "The importance and face plausibility of [Shweder's] thesis … no less than the excellence of the individual essays, makes this a valuable volume."

In the eight essays collected in Why Do Men Barbecue? Shweder again explores the human condition and the factors that contribute to cultural differences in mental life: for example, while Western women do everything they can to look younger, women in India cannot wait to reach middle age. Shweder encourages his First World readership to reconsider cultural practices that range from the American tradition of children sleeping alone—a common practice only in the United States and Great Britain—to female circumcision in the Third World—women in some countries reportedly find a lack of circumcision to be offensive. He cites the danger of adopting a generalized attitude toward the social sciences and notes that if each culture has unique traditions, why should any one culture assume superiority? As an Economist contributor explained Shweder's premise, "In a world where people move frequently between countries and cultures, such deeply rooted assumptions pose problems" and "people in the West, like 19th-century missionaries, are tempted to impose their cultural assumptions on other countries, convinced that West is best." M. C. Duhig, reviewing Why Do Men Barbecue? in
the Library Journal, recommended the book for students in "programs in anthropology, psychology, sociology, economics, and cultural and gender studies."

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